When the U.S. government's version of the United Way handed out hundreds of millions of dollars to charities last year, its largesse extended to more than 1,280 nonprofit organizations that collectively owe $36 million in taxes dating back as far as 1988. At the same time, other federal agencies gave $1.6 billion in grants to at least 170 of the delinquent charities, which account for nearly 6 percent of the approximately 22,700 charities funded by the Combined Federal Campaign. And every one of 15 charities that underwent a detailed audit by investigators at the Government Accountability Office was found to be engaged in “abusive and potentially criminal activity,” according to a report on the investigation. The GAO referred the charities to the Internal Revenue Service, for criminal investigation and collection. Among them was a mental health clinic that owed more than $1.5 million and has a track record of failure to remit ... http://www.msnbc.msn.com

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he hopes to revive long-stalled peace efforts with the Palestinians, as a ceasefire takes hold in the Gaza Strip. In a major policy speech, Mr Olmert pledged humanitarian and economic incentives if militants freed a captive Israeli soldier and violence ceased. Mr Olmert said the Palestinians now stood at an "historic crossroads". The speech comes against a backdrop of increased diplomatic activity including visits by top US officials this week. Earlier, Israeli troops shot and killed two Palestinians in a raid in the West Bank, one a militant and the other a 55-year-old woman. Under the ceasefire, Palestinian militants agreed to stop rocket attacks on Israel, and Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6187282.stm

A dossier drawn up by Alexander Litvinenko on the Kremlin’s takeover of the world’s richest energy giant will be given to Scotland Yard today as police investigate the former KGB spy’s secret dealings with some of Russia’s richest men. It emerged yesterday that Mr Litvinenko travelled to Israel just weeks before he died to hand over evidence to a Russian billionaire of how agents working for President Putin dealt with his enemies running the Yukos oil company. He passed this information to Leonid Nevzlin, the former second-in-command of Yukos, who fled to Tel Aviv in fear for his life after the Kremlin seized and then sold off the $40 billion (£21 billion) company. Mr Nevzlin told The Times that it was his “duty” to pass on the file. “Alexander had information on crimes committed with the Russian Government’s direct participation,” he said. “He only recently gave me and my attorneys documents that shed light on the most significant aspects of the Yukos affair.”...http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2473385,00.html#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=World

An angry crowd demanded Sunday to know why police officers killed an unarmed man on the day of his wedding, firing dozens of shots that also wounded two of the man's friends. Some called for the ouster of the city's police commissioner. At a vigil and rally the day after 23-year-old Sean Bell was supposed to have married the mother of his two young children, a crowd led by the Rev. Al Sharpton shouted "No justice, no peace." At one point, the crowd of a few hundred counted off to 50, the number of rounds that are estimated to have been fired. "We cannot allow this to continue to happen," Sharpton said at the gathering outside Mary Immaculate Hospital, where one of the wounded men was in critical condition. "We've got to understand that all of us were in that car." ...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2680641

Australia's monopoly wheat exporter AWB Ltd may have breached Australia's Crimes Act over the payment of kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, a judicial inquiry found on Monday.The inquiry by retired judge Terence Cole found charges were possible against 11 managers of AWB, and found the company had misled the United Nation's oil-for-food program over $222 million in payments to Iraq before 2003. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2680830

A lineup of legal heavyweights unusual even by Supreme Court standards is doing battle in a case pitting Wachovia Corp. against Michigan banking regulators. Wachovia's side includes Walter Dellinger, Seth Waxman and Theodore Olson, all of whom served as solicitor general of the United States -- the government's top courtroom lawyer. Backing Michigan in its arguments to the court Nov. 29 are the other 49 states, led by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the state's governor-elect. At stake is what Dellinger, 65, calls ``the single most important legal doctrine'' for many U.S. industries: how free states are to impose stricter regulations than those set by the federal government. If Michigan and Spitzer prevail, says Dellinger, who served under President Bill Clinton, ``we're in danger of switching roles, where Europe has the great common market and we have the Balkanized economy.'' The high court is being asked to decide whether federal oversight of Wachovia and ...http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aMdRil4_Z5zc&refer=exclusive